Murdered drug dealer David 'Daithi' Douglas was previously targeted by a ruthless Cabra gang who tried to kill him last November.

A Hutch associate, Douglas (55) was lucky to survive after he was shot several times on the evening of November 8, 2015, just 100 yards from his Cabra home while walking his dog.

A car which was found burnt out at Spitalfields, in the Liberties. Picture: Arthur Carron

The father of one spent a number of weeks in the hospital after the botched hit at Killala Road.

In 2010, Douglas was sentenced to 10 years in prison with five suspended in connection with the seizure of €562,000 worth of cocaine in April 2008. These drugs were understood to have been trafficked here by the Kinahan cartel. Detectives from the Garda National Drugs Unit arrested Douglas and three other men on April 13, 2008, after a tip-off. A black holdall bag containing 8kg of cocaine was recovered by gardaí.

Douglas was previously very close to aviation broker John Kinsella (46), who was jailed in 2009 for trying to smuggle €7m worth of drugs through Weston Airport.

Before being involved in gangland crime, Douglas was a member of the Provisional IRA. He was convicted in 1983 of shooting with intent to kill a garda during a robbery and he was sentenced to 12 years in the Special Criminal Court for this offence.

Sources say that Douglas was later kicked out of the organisation because of his involvement with drugs.

After last year's attempted murder, it emerged that Douglas was a former zookeeper at Dublin Zoo.